Thursday, February 18, 2010

Last day i was browsing through YouTube and a farm scene got my attention.

It was a very familiar scene from my childhood. Then i started thinking of how that pump works.

The motor produces rotary motion and that motion need to converted to a flow and finally move water from one place to another.

It was fun to think like a child. I started thinking i have 2 buckets, one placed down with water and second one placed above me which does not have water. I have straws from both in my hand. Its nice to imagine, I suck from on straw and then spit to second. so in total the actions i need is use my both thumps to close ends of straws to avoid air entering/water coming out and then suck and spit.

The action in a procedural way

1) Close both ends of straws with thumps2) Open thump1 and suck from the straw which is from the bucket with water.3) Close thump1 and open the other thump4) Spit water to that straw and close thump2.5) Repeat step 2,3,4 again and again till the water finishes.

So we found 2 valves, one chamber, a Piston and rad can covert rotatory motion to water flow. May be one design for a pump ( seems this was invented in late 1800s ) and we never think how things works.

Monday, February 15, 2010

Divide and rule is a combination of political, military and economicstrategy of gaining and maintaining power by breaking up larger concentrations of power into chunks that individually have less power than the one implementing the strategy. In reality, it often refers to a strategy where small power groups are prevented from linking up and becoming more powerful, since it is difficult to break up existing power structures.

The typical elements of this technique are said to involve

creating or encouraging divisions among the subjects in order to forestall alliances that could challenge the sovereign.

aiding and promoting those who are willing to cooperate with the sovereign.

fostering distrust and enmity between local rulers.

encouraging frivolous expenditures that leave little money for political and military ends.

It is said that the British used the strategy to gain control of the large territory of India by keeping its people divided along lines of religion, language, or caste, taking control of petty princely states in India piecemeal.

In 1835, Thomas Macaulay articulated the goals of British colonial imperialism most clearly:"I have traveled across the length and breadth of India and I have not seen one person who is a beggar, who is a thief. Such wealth I have seen in this country, such high moral values, people of such caliber, that I do not think we would ever conquer this country, unless we break the very backbone of this nation, which is her spiritual and cultural heritage, and, therefore, I propose that we replace the old and ancient education system, her culture, because if the Indians think that all that is foreign and English is good and greater than their own, they will lose their self-esteem, their native self-culture and they will become what we want them to be, a truly dominated nation."

The strategy was succinctly put: "We must do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern, a class of persons Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, words and intellect." As the architect of Colonial Britain's Educational Policy in India, Thomas Macaulay was to set the tone for what educated Indians were going to learn about themselves, their civilization, and their view of Britain and the world around them. An arch-racist, Thomas Macaulay had nothing but scornful disdain for Indian history and civilization. In his infamous minute of 1835, he wrote that he had "never found one among them (speaking of Orientalists, an opposing political faction) who could deny that a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia". "It is, no exaggeration to say, that all the historical information which has been collected from all the books written in Sanskrit language is less valuable than what may be found in the most paltry abridgments used at preparatory schools in England

Child is the father of man :- its a great saying because while playing with my kid , lot times, i learn a lot.

I work with computers for a long time, but never thought how the art of typewriting came in. Last day while playing with kid, he was asking me to do stamping, and then we did it on different patterns. Then i was talking to wife about Chinese and English languages where Chinese consists of words and not alphabets. I told they have a problems with new words. Wife told it may be really tough to remember all the words.

Then i started thinking, all the key board may started as stamping in a sequence. But what may be the requirement ? different hand writing ?, standardizing the handwriting ? may be. But i am sure people wont be able to do sequence stamping faster than a person writing.

Then somebody came up with an abstraction for sequence stamping - which is called as a key board - Some blog told key board was invented 52 times to reach the current state. Now who needs to think of sequence stamping ?

Time changed, the underlying mechanisms changed still the abstraction remained and found place in the new generation devices like computers.

Same is the case of world. Almost all primary skills changed but the abstractive skills remained. People learned the new abstractive skills and relayed on them for the existence. Then we create derivate abstractions from primary abstractions and the derivate abstraction creates new skills and we learn them and move ahead. Always news skills born then specializations happened and the derivative abstractions occurred. We found design patterns and new abstractions and created new skills. The cycle continues and we move ahead creating/learning and abstracting new skills.

The power of Abstraction leads us to development and new ways of life.

Saturday, February 13, 2010

Decided the change the title of the from 14 mode hybrid ?? to hybrid concept as now we are going beyond the a 14 mode concept.

Today i was thinking on it a bit more and introduction of a fixed gears to hybrid system.

Use case ? Lets say we want to increase the tow capacity on a particular profile. The same Electric motor + ICE works but if the truck is going a steep - as per the previous theory , the entire load will shift to electric motors as speed decreases. So by introducing a fixed gear system, the load requirement gets supported by ICE and Electric motors which helps to add more weight capability.

So this can work across all profiles. The control system/software needs to decide which one is more efficient on below 1) to use another cylinder 2) a fixed gear.

So finally we are getting more clear to have a hybrid system concept where we use only required optimal energy for a particular use which helps to increase the overall efficiency.

Thursday, February 11, 2010

One of the major concern for a hybrid buyer is fuel economy. I found a nice way to tackle it in our hybrid concept by introducing profiles.

example:

Commuter Profile

Auto profile

The commuter profile makes the 5 cylinder engine to operate only 3 (or even 2 ) of its cylinders and use electric motors to support at extra power needs (similar to HSD/ BAS+ hybrid of GM ) which uses electric motor for low speeds, ICE at optimal rpm - gen, ICE at optimal rpm and ICE + electric motor for acceleration /up hills and regeneration at breaking.

The other idea is to support this profile with an aerodynamic canopy ( factory designed with canopy to have max aero effect on the optimal rpm /speed ) for better fuel efficiency.

So this takes off the worry daily commuter to have the truck or if truck is running long one side without any load and use the power only when its needed than running all cylinders all time. ( example a 3.7 ltr 5 cylinder engine, operating with 3 cylinder mode will have almost 2.22 ltr + electric motor power available - so it should offer better power and fuel economy than a 2.4 ltr 4 cylinder engined equinox ) . This should be good power for even 4 people drive + some loads ( remember equinox 2.4 ltr has a tow capacity of 1500 pounds.)

The Auto profile is to choose the ICE and electric motor combinations only according to the pre-programmed logic.

Its better to have more profiles to optimize the use resources more effectively ( like a medium mode ( 4 people / light load ) , tow mode ( fully loaded / tow ) etc.1500

The base idea is like electric grid communication , use only optimal resources for any situation and save the rest. Organize the profiles in such a way to get maximum efficiency and allow to force to stick to some settings if needed.

In practical tests may be "'x' Cylinder + electric motor + Generator" mode need to be reconsidered based on the efficiency it can achieve. But its all depends on the control logic which is programmed by a firmware to activate and use the mode. On a transmission design point, all the modes should be possible without further hardware change.

The ICE should be optimized for peak efficiency and fixed rpm range and rest all should be handled with the Electric motor/Generator . The transmission need to designed so that it can have a trans output as a function of ice rpm, Electric motor and Generator. The existing technologies which is used in the 2 mode system (like active fuel management ,variable valve timing,direct injection etc) should make this.

One update is to make more modes with introduction of turbo charging . The modes will be increased to around 23 modes (2 + 3 = 5 again another numerology works) - which should be able to reduce the 3.7 ltr engine to a 2.5 ltr engine ( still 5 cylinder )

If this can be done, i am sure the design can achieve a very high fuel economy without sacrificing any power and will be good in emissions as it runs in optimal way all the time/modes.

How GM can do it ? Optimizing the 2 mode system and use the existing 3.7 ltr engine which goes in H3/Colorado. What is takes its only some time ,experiment spirit and test. Its all existing resources and only what it takes is incremental update of system.

It clearly showed me,why there impact of the reviews and sales numbers reflected it very well. If somebody from GM looked on this well, i am sure they would have understood what needed to be done and how they should have done incremental updates to it.

Finally i spend a bit time reading IIHS Crash tests and Chevolet colorados performace ( hits bottom ). I believe the new GM should have learned to have quality vehicles than cheap vehicles. So i decided to do a small contribution for a 2011 Chevolet colorado design. Its completely derived from the 2010 Equinox which will really help them to

1) Reduce costs by sharing parts with Equinox2) Use Existing resources better than spending money for a full redesign ( old GM way was never update any vehicle, design, sell, again redesign sell - finally loose money and market ).This will be a great incremental update for the Colorado.3) As they can use the parts of Terrain for the GMC counter part4) As This is derived they can use parts of existing platforms ( GMT 355 and use exterior and engine from Theta .Both are known ones they can minimize the test time and concentrate on tests than design.5) It looks really better.